Tag: Philadelphia Business Journal

Interview and article prepared for the Philadelphia Business Journal, as filed last week, without edits, to run in today’s edition.

James T. Buysee is a one man regional office.

Last year when he was being courted to head up North American operations for BMS, a reinsurance intermediary based in London, the subject of his moving was never discussed. Not to company offices in Chicago, Minneapolis or Connecticut. Not even to Dallas, the center of the firm’s U.S. operations.

“I didn’t bring it up,” the Paoli resident said. “I like it here.”

So for now, Buysee, who started on Feb. 1, is charged with better uniting those disparate locations from an altogether separate one. He is splitting the leading role with Anne Marie Roberts, president and chief operating officer, who is based in Dallas, one of those offices Buysee isn’t in.

“Those folks in London decided they needed another person on the ground,” he said. “More arms and legs.”

He is meant to focus on fostering relationships, finding new people, resources and business productions. The company has seen rapid growth in recent years, but to do more, there needs to be a better united strategy among U.S. offices, he said. In the next 18 months or less, he hopes to do that.

“Recently our growth has outpaced our internal systems,” he said. “So now it’s about tying the teams together into a single cohesive company with a single culture.”

BMS was born as a correspondent broker based across the Atlanic Ocean but is increasingly looking to have a larger presence in the United States.

“I hope to be a big part of that transition,” he said. With nearly 30 years in the reinsurance brokerage business, he could be the right man for the job.

But he’ll be doing it here.

Soon Buysee might be asked to develop a small staff and perhaps develop a presence in Philadelphia, he said.

“I don’t have any intentions of leaving.”

See other reporting by Christopher Wink here.

Interview and article prepared for the Philadelphia Business Journal, as filed last week, without edits, to run in yesterday’s edition.

His colleagues told him that a move from Philadelphia to New Jersey was a mistake.

Ten years ago, though, Dr. Perry J. Weinstock made the move. He was recruited by Cooper University Hospital in Camden, N.J. as the director of clinical cardiology and associate head of his division in 1998.  For ten years he served the growing research university and served it well. In January it was announced that Weinstock would be made head of the division of cardiovascular disease at Cooper.

“I’ve waited ten years for this promotion,” he said.

Before Cooper,  he was the director of cardiology at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital with a nice office and patients he liked. So, at first, he rebuked calls from Cooper. But the calls persisted enough that he crossed the Delaware River for a tour. He was impressed with the facilities and staff.

“To this day I love Jefferson,” he said. “But, Cooper has really emerged as a premiere research hospital in the Delaware Valley. It is truly an honor to lead such a fine institution.”

Still, more work is to be done, he said. Weinstock has plans to expand the hospital’s preventative cardiology practice.

“I also want to promote quality,” he said. “At all levels of cardiovascular care: inpatient, outpatient, prevention, treatment after the fact.”

He thinks his background in practiced cardiology, rather than strictly an academic, leadership or supervisory role, will help.

“I have actually worked on the battle lines,” he said. “If that general sits in the ivory tower and never gets his fingernails dirty, it’s hard to listen to him.”

For it, he has a lesson, ten years in the making.

“There’s life on the other side of the river.”

See other reporting by Christopher Wink here. Above, an artist’s rendering of Cooper University Hospital after impending renovations, taken from the hospital’s Web site.

Interview and article prepared for the Philadelphia Business Journal, as filed last week, without edits, to run in this Friday’s edition.

The Health Care Improvement Foundation works with all of the Delaware Valley’s 60 hospitals, each year, in one capacity or another, in the hopes of improving common best practices in and around Philadelphia. New president Kate Flynn only hopes to carry on the nonprofit’s mission.

“I want to continue the work that we’ve started, extending beyond the walls of the hospital, to embrace and engage other parts of the health care community,” she said. “What we have in common is the patient.”

Early January saw Flynn moving to HCIF in Center City, after consulting for the group while with VHA East Coast in Trevose.

“We engage hospitals and health care providers to work towards standard approaches across, if we can, the entire region,” she said. “We convene and act as facilitator.”

The group, which receives funding from Independence Blue Cross, is aligned with the Delaware Valley Health Care Council, and works with the ECRI Institute, among other partners, organizes forums and workshops for the region’s health care leaders.

The group has been a leader in the fight against MRSA, a staph infection, by working with communities and health care facilities to educate the public on its dangers.

“It takes a village to make that happen,” she said.

An ongoing task of theirs is to increase collaboration between the region’s medical facilities to increase patient safety.

“The specialization of medical care has done so much, but the unintended consequence is a ton of communication issues,” she said. “Philadelphia has world class medical institutions and medical research and education for all kinds of medical and allied health. We want to bring Philadelphia’s reputation for patient safety to that same world class level.”

They involve themselves in broader concepts of safety, too.

Currently, the group is working with 20 regional health care providers on an environmentally friendly pilot hospital. They’ve also assisted in coordinating disaster preparedness strategies in Philadelphia and beyond.

Now Flynn is charged with these tasks and more.

“Our goal, as an organization,” she said. “Is to make the Delaware Valley the safest place in the world to receive medical care.”

See other reporting by Christopher Wink here.